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Urantia Book Paper 89 Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
...
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Paper 89 Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement
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Introduction
PRIMITIVE man regarded himself as being in debt to the spirits, as standing in
need of redemption. As the savages looked at it, in justice the spirits might
have visited much more bad luck upon them. As time passed, this concept
developed into the doctrine of sin and salvation. The soul was looked upon as
coming into the world under forfeit--original sin. The soul must be ransomed; a
scapegoat must be provided. The head-hunter, in addition to practicing the cult
of skull worship, was able to provide a substitute for his own life, a
scapeman.
The savage was early possessed with the notion that spirits derive supreme
satisfaction from the sight of human misery, suffering, and humiliation. At
first, man was only concerned with sins of commission, but later he became
exercised over sins of omission. And the whole subsequent sacrificial system
grew up around these two ideas. This new ritual had to do with the observance
of the propitiation ceremonies of sacrifice. Primitive man believed that
something special must be done to win the favor of the gods; only advanced
civilization recognizes a consistently even-tempered and benevolent God.
Propitiation was insurance against immediate ill luck rather than investment in
future bliss. And the rituals of avoidance, exorcism, coercion, and
propitiation all merge into one another.
1. THE TABOO
Observance of a taboo was man's effort to dodge ill luck, to keep from
offending the spirit ghosts by the avoidance of something. The taboos were at
first nonreligious, but they early acquired ghost or spirit sanction, and when
thus reinforced, they became lawmakers and institution builders. The taboo is
the source of ceremonial standards and the ancestor of primitive self-control.
It was the earliest form of societal regulation and for a long time the only
one; it is still a basic unit of the social regulative structure.
The respect which these prohibitions commanded in the mind of the savage
exactly equaled his fear of the powers who were supposed to enforce them.
Taboos first arose because of chance experience with ill luck; later they were
proposed by chiefs and shamans--fetish men who were thought to be directed by a
spirit ghost, even by a god. The fear of spirit retribution is so great in the
mind of a primitive that he sometimes dies of fright when he has violated a
taboo, and this dramatic episode enormously strengthens the hold of the taboo
on the minds of the survivors.
Among the earliest prohibitions were restrictions on the appropriation of women
and other property. As religion began to play a larger part in the evolu-
top of page - 975
tion of the taboo, the article resting under ban was regarded as unclean,
subsequently as unholy. The records of the Hebrews are full of the mention of
things clean and unclean, holy and unholy, but their beliefs along these lines
were far less cumbersome and extensive than were those of many other peoples.
The seven commandments of Dalamatia and Eden, as well as the ten injunctions of
the Hebrews, were definite taboos, all expressed in the same negative form as
were the most ancient prohibitions. But these newer codes were truly
emancipating in that they took the place of thousands of pre-existent taboos.
And more than this, these later commandments definitely promised something in
return for obedience.
The early food taboos originated in fetishism and totemism. The swine was
sacred to the Phoenicians, the cow to the Hindus. The Egyptian taboo on pork
has been perpetuated by the Hebraic and Islamic faiths. A variant of the food
taboo was the belief that a pregnant woman could think so much about a certain
food that the child, when born, would be the echo of that food. Such viands
would be taboo to the child.
Methods of eating soon became taboo, and so originated ancient and modern table
etiquette. Caste systems and social levels are vestigial remnants of olden
prohibitions. The taboos were highly effective in organizing society, but they
were terribly burdensome; the negative-ban system not only maintained useful
and constructive regulations but also obsolete, outworn, and useless taboos.
There would, however, be no civilized society to sit in criticism upon
primitive man except for these far-flung and multifarious taboos, and the taboo
would never have endured but for the upholding sanctions of primitive religion.
Many of the essential factors in man's evolution have been highly expensive,
have cost vast treasure in effort, sacrifice, and self-denial, but these
achievements of self-control were the real rungs on which man climbed
civilization's ascending ladder.
2. THE CONCEPT OF SIN
The fear of chance and the dread of bad luck literally drove man into the
invention of primitive religion as supposed insurance against these calamities.
From magic and ghosts, religion evolved through spirits and fetishes to taboos.
Every primitive tribe had its tree of forbidden fruit, literally the apple but
figuratively consisting of a thousand branches hanging heavy with all sorts of
taboos. And the forbidden tree always said, "Thou shalt not."
As the savage mind evolved to that point where it envisaged both good and bad
spirits, and when the taboo received the solemn sanction of evolving religion,
the stage was all set for the appearance of the new conception of sin. The idea
of sin was universally established in the world before revealed religion ever
made its entry. It was only by the concept of sin that natural death became
logical to the primitive mind. Sin was the transgression of taboo, and death
was the penalty of sin.
Sin was ritual, not rational; an act, not a thought. And this entire concept of
sin was fostered by the lingering traditions of Dilmun and the days of a little
paradise on earth. The tradition of Adam and the Garden of Eden also lent
substance to the dream of a onetime "golden age" of the dawn of the races. And
all this confirmed the ideas later expressed in the belief that man had his
origin in a special creation, that he started his career in perfection, and
that transgression of the taboos--sin--brought him down to his later sorry
plight.
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The habitual violation of a taboo became a vice; primitive law made vice a
crime; religion made it a sin. Among the early tribes the violation of a taboo
was a combined crime and sin. Community calamity was always regarded as
punishment for tribal sin. To those who believed that prosperity and
righteousness went together, the apparent prosperity of the wicked occasioned
so much worry that it was necessary to invent hells for the punishment of taboo
violators; the numbers of these places of future punishment have varied from
one to five.
The idea of confession and forgiveness early appeared in primitive religion.
Men would ask forgiveness at a public meeting for sins they intended to commit
the following week. Confession was merely a rite of remission, also a public
notification of defilement, a ritual of crying "unclean, unclean!" Then
followed all the ritualistic schemes of purification. All ancient peoples
practiced these meaningless ceremonies. Many apparently hygienic customs of the
early tribes were largely ceremonial.
3. RENUNCIATION AND HUMILIATION
Renunciation came as the next step in religious evolution; fasting was a common
practice. Soon it became the custom to forego many forms of physical pleasure,
especially of a sexual nature. The ritual of the fast was deeply rooted in many
ancient religions and has been handed down to practically all modern theologic
systems of thought.
Just about the time barbarian man was recovering from the wasteful practice of
burning and burying property with the dead, just as the economic structure of
the races was beginning to take shape, this new religious doctrine of
renunciation appeared, and tens of thousands of earnest souls began to court
poverty. Property was regarded as a spiritual handicap. These notions of the
spiritual dangers of material possession were widespreadly entertained in the
times of Philo and Paul, and they have markedly influenced European philosophy
ever since.
Poverty was just a part of the ritual of the mortification of the flesh which,
unfortunately, became incorporated into the writings and teachings of many
religions, notably Christianity. Penance is the negative form of this ofttimes
foolish ritual of renunciation. But all this taught the savage self-control,
and that was a worth-while advancement in social evolution. Self-denial and
self-control were two of the greatest social gains from early evolutionary
religion. Self-control gave man a new philosophy of life; it taught him the art
of augmenting life's fraction by lowering the denominator of personal demands
instead of always attempting to increase the numerator of selfish
gratification.
These olden ideas of self-discipline embraced flogging and all sorts of
physical torture. The priests of the mother cult were especially active in
teaching the virtue of physical suffering, setting the example by submitting
themselves to castration. The Hebrews, Hindus, and Buddhists were earnest
devotees of this doctrine of physical humiliation.
All through the olden times men sought in these ways for extra credits on the
self-denial ledgers of their gods. It was once customary, when under some
emotional stress, to make vows of self-denial and self-torture. In time these
vows assumed the form of contracts with the gods and, in that sense,
represented true evolutionary progress in that the gods were supposed to do
something definite in return for this self-torture and mortification of the
flesh. Vows were both nega-
top of page - 977
tive and positive. Pledges of this harmful and extreme nature are best observed
today among certain groups in India.
It was only natural that the cult of renunciation and humiliation should have
paid attention to sexual gratification. The continence cult originated as a
ritual among soldiers prior to engaging in battle; in later days it became the
practice of "saints." This cult tolerated marriage only as an evil lesser than
fornication. Many of the world's great religions have been adversely influenced
by this ancient cult, but none more markedly than Christianity. The Apostle
Paul was a devotee of this cult, and his personal views are reflected in the
teachings which he fastened onto Christian theology: "It is good for a man not
to touch a woman." "I would that all men were even as I myself." "I say,
therefore, to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them to abide even as
I." Paul well knew that such teachings were not a part of Jesus' gospel, and
his acknowledgment of this is illustrated by his statement, "I speak this by
permission and not by commandment." But this cult led Paul to look down upon
women. And the pity of it all is that his personal opinions have long
influenced the teachings of a great world religion. If the advice of the
tentmaker-teacher were to be literally and universally obeyed, then would the
human race come to a sudden and inglorious end. Furthermore, the involvement of
a religion with the ancient continence cult leads directly to a war against
marriage and the home, society's veritable foundation and the basic institution
of human progress. And it is not to be wondered at that all such beliefs
fostered the formation of celibate priesthoods in the many religions of various
peoples.
Someday man should learn how to enjoy liberty without license, nourishment
without gluttony, and pleasure without debauchery. Self-control is a better
human policy of behavior regulation than is extreme self-denial. Nor did Jesus
ever teach these unreasonable views to his followers.
4. ORIGINS OF SACRIFICE
Sacrifice as a part of religious devotions, like many other worshipful rituals,
did not have a simple and single origin. The tendency to bow down before power
and to prostrate oneself in worshipful adoration in the presence of mystery is
foreshadowed in the fawning of the dog before its master. It is but one step
from the impulse of worship to the act of sacrifice. Primitive man gauged the
value of his sacrifice by the pain which he suffered. When the idea of
sacrifice first attached itself to religious ceremonial, no offering was
contemplated which was not productive of pain. The first sacrifices were such
acts as plucking hair, cutting the flesh, mutilations, knocking out teeth, and
cutting off fingers. As civilization advanced, these crude concepts of
sacrifice were elevated to the level of the rituals of self-abnegation,
asceticism, fasting, deprivation, and the later Christian doctrine of
sanctification through sorrow, suffering, and the mortification of the flesh.
Early in the evolution of religion there existed two conceptions of the
sacrifice: the idea of the gift sacrifice, which connoted the attitude of
thanksgiving, and the debt sacrifice, which embraced the idea of redemption.
Later there developed the notion of substitution.
Man still later conceived that his sacrifice of whatever nature might function
as a message bearer to the gods; it might be as a sweet savor in the nostrils
of
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deity. This brought incense and other aesthetic features of sacrificial rituals
which developed into sacrificial feasting, in time becoming increasingly
elaborate and ornate.
As religion evolved, the sacrificial rites of conciliation and propitiation
replaced the older methods of avoidance, placation, and exorcism.
The earliest idea of the sacrifice was that of a neutrality assessment levied
by ancestral spirits; only later did the idea of atonement develop. As man got
away from the notion of the evolutionary origin of the race, as the traditions
of the days of the Planetary Prince and the sojourn of Adam filtered down
through time, the concept of sin and of original sin became widespread, so that
sacrifice for accidental and personal sin evolved into the doctrine of
sacrifice for the atonement of racial sin. The atonement of the sacrifice was a
blanket insurance device which covered even the resentment and jealousy of an
unknown god.
Surrounded by so many sensitive spirits and grasping gods, primitive man was
face to face with such a host of creditor deities that it required all the
priests, ritual, and sacrifices throughout an entire lifetime to get him out of
spiritual debt. The doctrine of original sin, or racial guilt, started every
person out in serious debt to the spirit powers.
Gifts and bribes are given to men; but when tendered to the gods, they are
described as being dedicated, made sacred, or are called sacrifices.
Renunciation was the negative form of propitiation; sacrifice became the
positive form. The act of propitiation included praise, glorification,
flattery, and even entertainment. And it is the remnants of these positive
practices of the olden propitiation cult that constitute the modern forms of
divine worship. Present-day forms of worship are simply the ritualization of
these ancient sacrificial techniques of positive propitiation.
Animal sacrifice meant much more to primitive man than it could ever mean to
modern races. These barbarians regarded the animals as their actual and near
kin. As time passed, man became shrewd in his sacrificing, ceasing to offer up
his work animals. At first he sacrificed the best of everything, including his
domesticated animals.
It was no empty boast that a certain Egyptian ruler made when he stated that he
had sacrificed: 113,433 slaves, 493,386 head of cattle, 88 boats, 2,756 golden
images, 331,702 jars of honey and oil, 228,380 jars of wine, 680,714 geese,
6,744,428 loaves of bread, and 5,740,352 sacks of coin. And in order to do this
he must needs have sorely taxed his toiling subjects.
Sheer necessity eventually drove these semisavages to eat the material part of
their sacrifices, the gods having enjoyed the soul thereof. And this custom
found justification under the pretense of the ancient sacred meal, a communion
service according to modern usage.
5. SACRIFICES AND CANNIBALISM
Modern ideas of early cannibalism are entirely wrong; it was a part of the
mores of early society. While cannibalism is traditionally horrible to modern
civilization, it was a part of the social and religious structure of primitive
society. Group interests dictated the practice of cannibalism. It grew up
through the urge of necessity and persisted because of the slavery of
superstition and ignorance. It was a social, economic, religious, and military
custom.
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Early man was a cannibal; he enjoyed human flesh, and therefore he offered it
as a food gift to the spirits and his primitive gods. Since ghost spirits were
merely modified men, and since food was man's greatest need, then food must
likewise be a spirit's greatest need.
Cannibalism was once well-nigh universal among the evolving races. The Sangiks
were all cannibalistic, but originally the Andonites were not, nor were the
Nodites and Adamites; neither were the Andites until after they had become
grossly admixed with the evolutionary races.
The taste for human flesh grows. Having been started through hunger,
friendship, revenge, or religious ritual, the eating of human flesh goes on to
habitual cannibalism. Man-eating has arisen through food scarcity, though this
has seldom been the underlying reason. The Eskimos and early Andonites,
however, seldom were cannibalistic except in times of famine. The red men,
especially in Central America, were cannibals. It was once a general practice
for primitive mothers to kill and eat their own children in order to renew the
strength lost in childbearing, and in Queensland the first child is still
frequently thus killed and devoured. In recent times cannibalism has been
deliberately resorted to by many African tribes as a war measure, a sort of
frightfulness with which to terrorize their neighbors.
Some cannibalism resulted from the degeneration of once superior stocks, but it
was mostly prevalent among the evolutionary races. Man-eating came on at a time
when men experienced intense and bitter emotions regarding their enemies.
Eating human flesh became part of a solemn ceremony of revenge; it was believed
that an enemy's ghost could, in this way, be destroyed or fused with that of
the eater. It was once a widespread belief that wizards attained their powers
by eating human flesh.
Certain groups of man-eaters would consume only members of their own tribes, a
pseudospiritual inbreeding which was supposed to accentuate tribal solidarity.
But they also ate enemies for revenge with the idea of appropriating their
strength. It was considered an honor to the soul of a friend or fellow
tribesman if his body were eaten, while it was no more than just punishment to
an enemy thus to devour him. The savage mind made no pretensions to being
consistent.
Among some tribes aged parents would seek to be eaten by their children; among
others it was customary to refrain from eating near relations; their bodies
were sold or exchanged for those of strangers. There was considerable commerce
in women and children who had been fattened for slaughter. When disease or war
failed to control population, the surplus was unceremoniously eaten.
Cannibalism has been gradually disappearing because of the following
influences:
1. It sometimes became a communal ceremony, the assumption of collective
responsibility for inflicting the death penalty upon a fellow tribesman. The
blood guilt ceases to be a crime when participated in by all, by society. The
last of cannibalism in Asia was this eating of executed criminals.
2. It very early became a religious ritual, but the growth of ghost fear did
not always operate to reduce man-eating.
3. Eventually it progressed to the point where only certain parts or organs of
the body were eaten, those parts supposed to contain the soul or portions of
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the spirit. Blood drinking became common, and it was customary to mix the
"edible" parts of the body with medicines.
4. It became limited to men; women were forbidden to eat human flesh.
5. It was next limited to the chiefs, priests, and shamans.
6. Then it became taboo among the higher tribes. The taboo on man-eating
originated in Dalamatia and slowly spread over the world. The Nodites
encouraged cremation as a means of combating cannibalism since it was once a
common practice to dig up buried bodies and eat them.
7. Human sacrifice sounded the death knell of cannibalism. Human flesh having
become the food of superior men, the chiefs, it was eventually reserved for the
still more superior spirits; and thus the offering of human sacrifices
effectively put a stop to cannibalism, except among the lowest tribes. When
human sacrifice was fully established, man-eating became taboo; human flesh was
food only for the gods; man could eat only a small ceremonial bit, a sacrament.
Finally animal substitutes came into general use for sacrificial purposes, and
even among the more backward tribes dog-eating greatly reduced man-eating. The
dog was the first domesticated animal and was held in high esteem both as such
and as food.
6. EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SACRIFICE
Human sacrifice was an indirect result of cannibalism as well as its cure.
Providing spirit escorts to the spirit world also led to the lessening of
man-eating as it was never the custom to eat these death sacrifices. No race
has been entirely free from the practice of human sacrifice in some form and at
some time, even though the Andonites, Nodites, and Adamites were the least
addicted to cannibalism.
Human sacrifice has been virtually universal; it persisted in the religious
customs of the Chinese, Hindus, Egyptians, Hebrews, Mesopotamians, Greeks,
Romans, and many other peoples, even on to recent times among the backward
African and Australian tribes. The later American Indians had a civilization
emerging from cannibalism and, therefore, steeped in human sacrifice,
especially in Central and South America. The Chaldeans were among the first to
abandon the sacrificing of humans for ordinary occasions, substituting therefor
animals. About two thousand years ago a tenderhearted Japanese emperor
introduced clay images to take the place of human sacrifices, but it was less
than a thousand years ago that these sacrifices died out in northern Europe.
Among certain backward tribes, human sacrifice is still carried on by
volunteers, a sort of religious or ritual suicide. A shaman once ordered the
sacrifice of a much respected old man of a certain tribe. The people revolted;
they refused to obey. Whereupon the old man had his own son dispatch him; the
ancients really believed in this custom.
There is no more tragic and pathetic experience on record, illustrative of the
heart-tearing contentions between ancient and time-honored religious customs
and the contrary demands of advancing civilization, than the Hebrew narrative
of Jephthah and his only daughter. As was common custom, this well-meaning man
had made a foolish vow, had bargained with the "god of battles," agreeing to
pay a certain price for victory over his enemies. And this price was to make a
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sacrifice of that which first came out of his house to meet him when he
returned to his home. Jephthah thought that one of his trusty slaves would thus
be on hand to greet him, but it turned out that his daughter and only child
came out to welcome him home. And so, even at that late date and among a
supposedly civilized people, this beautiful maiden, after two months to mourn
her fate, was actually offered as a human sacrifice by her father, and with the
approval of his fellow tribesmen. And all this was done in the face of Moses'
stringent rulings against the offering of human sacrifice. But men and women
are addicted to making foolish and needless vows, and the men of old held all
such pledges to be highly sacred.
In olden times, when a new building of any importance was started, it was
customary to slay a human being as a "foundation sacrifice." This provided a
ghost spirit to watch over and protect the structure. When the Chinese made
ready to cast a bell, custom decreed the sacrifice of at least one maiden for
the purpose of improving the tone of the bell; the girl chosen was thrown alive
into the molten metal.
It was long the practice of many groups to build slaves alive into important
walls. In later times the northern European tribes substituted the walling in
of the shadow of a passerby for this custom of entombing living persons in the
walls of new buildings. The Chinese buried in a wall those workmen who died
while constructing it.
A petty king in Palestine, in building the walls of Jericho, "laid the
foundation thereof in Abiram, his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in
his youngest son, Segub." At that late date, not only did this father put two
of his sons alive in the foundation holes of the city's gates, but his action
is also recorded as being "according to the word of the Lord." Moses had
forbidden these foundation sacrifices, but the Israelites reverted to them soon
after his death. The twentieth-century ceremony of depositing trinkets and
keepsakes in the cornerstone of a new building is reminiscent of the primitive
foundation sacrifices.
It was long the custom of many peoples to dedicate the first fruits to the
spirits. And these observances, now more or less symbolic, are all survivals of
the early ceremonies involving human sacrifice. The idea of offering the
first-born as a sacrifice was widespread among the ancients, especially among
the Phoenicians, who were the last to give it up. It used to be said upon
sacrificing, "life for life." Now you say at death, "dust to dust."
The spectacle of Abraham constrained to sacrifice his son Isaac, while shocking
to civilized susceptibilities, was not a new or strange idea to the men of
those days. It was long a prevalent practice for fathers, at times of great
emotional stress, to sacrifice their first-born sons. Many peoples have a
tradition analogous to this story, for there once existed a world-wide and
profound belief that it was necessary to offer a human sacrifice when anything
extraordinary or unusual happened.
7. MODIFICATIONS OF HUMAN SACRIFICE
Moses attempted to end human sacrifices by inaugurating the ransom as a
substitute. He established a systematic schedule which enabled his people to
escape the worst results of their rash and foolish vows. Lands, properties, and
children could be redeemed according to the established fees, which were
payable
top of page - 982
to the priests. Those groups which ceased to sacrifice their first-born soon
possessed great advantages over less advanced neighbors who continued these
atrocious acts. Many such backward tribes were not only greatly weakened by
this loss of sons, but even the succession of leadership was often broken.
An outgrowth of the passing child sacrifice was the custom of smearing blood on
the house doorposts for the protection of the first-born. This was often done
in connection with one of the sacred feasts of the year, and this ceremony once
obtained over most of the world from Mexico to Egypt.
Even after most groups had ceased the ritual killing of children, it was the
custom to put an infant away by itself, off in the wilderness or in a little
boat on the water. If the child survived, it was thought that the gods had
intervened to preserve him, as in the traditions of Sargon, Moses, Cyrus, and
Romulus. Then came the practice of dedicating the first-born sons as sacred or
sacrificial, allowing them to grow up and then exiling them in lieu of death;
this was the origin of colonization. The Romans adhered to this custom in their
scheme of colonization.
Many of the peculiar associations of sex laxity with primitive worship had
their origin in connection with human sacrifice. In olden times, if a woman met
head-hunters, she could redeem her life by sexual surrender. Later, a maiden
consecrated to the gods as a sacrifice might elect to redeem her life by
dedicating her body for life to the sacred sex service of the temple; in this
way she could earn her redemption money. The ancients regarded it as highly
elevating to have sex relations with a woman thus engaged in ransoming her
life. It was a religious ceremony to consort with these sacred maidens, and in
addition, this whole ritual afforded an acceptable excuse for commonplace
sexual gratification. This was a subtle species of self-deception which both
the maidens and their consorts delighted to practice upon themselves. The mores
always drag behind in the evolutionary advance of civilization, thus providing
sanction for the earlier and more savagelike sex practices of the evolving
races.
Temple harlotry eventually spread throughout southern Europe and Asia. The
money earned by the temple prostitutes was held sacred among all peoples--a
high gift to present to the gods. The highest types of women thronged the
temple sex marts and devoted their earnings to all kinds of sacred services and
works of public good. Many of the better classes of women collected their
dowries by temporary sex service in the temples, and most men preferred to have
such women for wives.
8. REDEMPTION AND COVENANTS
Sacrificial redemption and temple prostitution were in reality modifications of
human sacrifice. Next came the mock sacrifice of daughters. This ceremony
consisted in bloodletting, with dedication to life-long virginity, and was a
moral reaction to the older temple harlotry. In more recent times virgins
dedicated themselves to the service of tending the sacred temple fires.
Men eventually conceived the idea that the offering of some part of the body
could take the place of the older and complete human sacrifice. Physical
mutilation was also considered to be an acceptable substitute. Hair, nails,
blood, and even fingers and toes were sacrificed. The later and well-nigh
universal ancient rite of circumcision was an outgrowth of the cult of partial
sacrifice; it was purely
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sacrificial, no thought of hygiene being attached thereto. Men were
circumcised; women had their ears pierced.
Subsequently it became the custom to bind fingers together instead of cutting
them off. Shaving the head and cutting the hair were likewise forms of
religious devotion. The making of eunuchs was at first a modification of the
idea of human sacrifice. Nose and lip piercing is still practiced in Africa,
and tattooing is an artistic evolution of the earlier crude scarring of the
body.
The custom of sacrifice eventually became associated, as a result of advancing
teachings, with the idea of the covenant. At last, the gods were conceived of
as entering into real agreements with man; and this was a major step in the
stabilization of religion. Law, a covenant, takes the place of luck, fear, and
superstition.
Man could never even dream of entering into a contract with Deity until his
concept of God had advanced to the level whereon the universe controllers were
envisioned as dependable. And man's early idea of God was so anthropomorphic
that he was unable to conceive of a dependable Deity until he himself became
relatively dependable, moral, and ethical.
But the idea of making a covenant with the gods did finally arrive.
Evolutionary man eventually acquired such moral dignity that he dared to
bargain with his gods. And so the business of offering sacrifices gradually
developed into the game of man's philosophic bargaining with God. And all this
represented a new device for insuring against bad luck or, rather, an enhanced
technique for the more definite purchase of prosperity. Do not entertain the
mistaken idea that these early sacrifices were a free gift to the gods, a
spontaneous offering of gratitude or thanksgiving; they were not expressions of
true worship.
Primitive forms of prayer were nothing more nor less than bargaining with the
spirits, an argument with the gods. It was a kind of bartering in which
pleading and persuasion were substituted for something more tangible and
costly. The developing commerce of the races had inculcated the spirit of trade
and had developed the shrewdness of barter; and now these traits began to
appear in man's worship methods. And as some men were better traders than
others, so some were regarded as better prayers than others. The prayer of a
just man was held in high esteem. A just man was one who had paid all accounts
to the spirits, had fully discharged every ritual obligation to the gods.
Early prayer was hardly worship; it was a bargaining petition for health,
wealth, and life. And in many respects prayers have not much changed with the
passing of the ages. They are still read out of books, recited formally, and
written out for emplacement on wheels and for hanging on trees, where the
blowing of the winds will save man the trouble of expending his own breath.
9. SACRIFICES AND SACRAMENTS
The human sacrifice, throughout the course of the evolution of Urantian
rituals, has advanced from the bloody business of man-eating to higher and more
symbolic levels. The early rituals of sacrifice bred the later ceremonies of
sacrament. In more recent times the priest alone would partake of a bit of the
cannibalistic sacrifice or a drop of human blood, and then all would partake of
the animal substitute. These early ideas of ransom, redemption, and covenants
have
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evolved into the later-day sacramental services. And all this ceremonial
evolution has exerted a mighty socializing influence.
In connection with the Mother of God cult, in Mexico and elsewhere, a sacrament
of cakes and wine was eventually utilized in lieu of the flesh and blood of the
older human sacrifices. The Hebrews long practiced this ritual as a part of
their Passover ceremonies, and it was from this ceremonial that the later
Christian version of the sacrament took its origin.
The ancient social brotherhoods were based on the rite of blood drinking; the
early Jewish fraternity was a sacrificial blood affair. Paul started out to
build a new Christian cult on "the blood of the everlasting covenant." And
while he may have unnecessarily encumbered Christianity with teachings about
blood and sacrifice, he did once and for all make an end of the doctrines of
redemption through human or animal sacrifices. His theologic compromises
indicate that even revelation must submit to the graduated control of
evolution. According to Paul, Christ became the last and all-sufficient human
sacrifice; the divine Judge is now fully and forever satisfied.
And so, after long ages the cult of the sacrifice has evolved into the cult of
the sacrament. Thus are the sacraments of modern religions the legitimate
successors of those shocking early ceremonies of human sacrifice and the still
earlier cannibalistic rituals. Many still depend upon blood for salvation, but
it has at least become figurative, symbolic, and mystic.
10. FORGIVENESS OF SIN
Ancient man only attained consciousness of favor with God through sacrifice.
Modern man must develop new techniques of achieving the self-consciousness of
salvation. The consciousness of sin persists in the mortal mind, but the
thought patterns of salvation therefrom have become outworn and antiquated. The
reality of the spiritual need persists, but intellectual progress has destroyed
the olden ways of securing peace and consolation for mind and soul.
Sin must be redefined as deliberate disloyalty to Deity. There are degrees of
disloyalty: the partial loyalty of indecision; the divided loyalty of
confliction; the dying loyalty of indifference; and the death of loyalty
exhibited in devotion to godless ideals.
The sense or feeling of guilt is the consciousness of the violation of the
mores; it is not necessarily sin. There is no real sin in the absence of
conscious disloyalty to Deity.
The possibility of the recognition of the sense of guilt is a badge of
transcendent distinction for mankind. It does not mark man as mean but rather
sets him apart as a creature of potential greatness and ever-ascending glory.
Such a sense of unworthiness is the initial stimulus that should lead quickly
and surely to those faith conquests which translate the mortal mind to the
superb levels of moral nobility, cosmic insight, and spiritual living; thus are
all the meanings of human existence changed from the temporal to the eternal,
and all values are elevated from the human to the divine.
The confession of sin is a manful repudiation of disloyalty, but it in no wise
mitigates the time-space consequences of such disloyalty. But
confession--sincere recognition of the nature of sin--is essential to religious
growth and spiritual progress.
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The forgiveness of sin by Deity is the renewal of loyalty relations following a
period of the human consciousness of the lapse of such relations as the
consequence of conscious rebellion. The forgiveness does not have to be sought,
only received as the consciousness of re-establishment of loyalty relations
between the creature and the Creator. And all the loyal sons of God are happy,
service-loving, and ever-progressive in the Paradise ascent.
[Presented by a Brilliant Evening Star of Nebadon.]
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
The Adjuster And The Soul Personality Survival Seraphic Guardians Of Destiny
Seraphic Planetary Government The Supreme Being The Almighty Supreme God The
Supreme Supreme And Ultimate--time And Space The Bestowals Of Christ Michael
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